Richard Watts of Bonmahon

On 18 March 1834 he was discharged from the Repulse. Two months later, on 15 July 1834, he married Jane Webb at St Mary's Church, Portsea.

After his marriage, Richard continued his naval life, serving as a boatman in the coastguard at Bonmahon. He worked there, or in Stradbally, until 27 June 1856, when he was superannuated on a pension of £20/10/- per annum.

Richard and Jane were in Bonmahon in 1837, when their daughter Jane was baptized. However by 1843 Richard and Jane were in Stradbally. He appears in Griffiths' Valuation of 1850-1 as tenant of a house at Stradballymore, leased from George Dormer.

By 1859, Richard was occupying a substantial house in Bunmahon, with a rateable value of £11/10/-. (The garden had an additional rateable value of 5/-.) He had also taken over the tenancy of a couple of plots of land in the village, extending to a little over an acre. One of these plots was described as "building ground". A couple of years later, he is also shown as ratepayer for a labourer's cottage in Ballynarrid, on the seaward side of the coast road from Bunmahon to Stradbally, together with 15 acres of land. He bought further small plots of land, some with buildings, in the course of the 1860s, and by 1871 was the owner of two houses in the village let out to tenants, and rented a further two houses from the Royal College of Physicians, who were the local landowner, including the large house in the village street in which the family presumably lived. By 1911, this house had ten windows in its frontage, and possessed stabling for fourteen, a cow house, four calf houses, ten piggeries, a fowl house, two boiling houses, a barn, a turf house, two potato houses, two workshops, two sheds, a forge, a laundry, an engine house and a cellar

. Thus Richard and his son James owned considerable property in Bonmahon ("the farm, the shop (the bar was in the shop), the village bakery, the creamery (destroyed in the Troubles) and all the workers' cottages, but not Knockmahon across the river.")

Richard was described as a merchant in 1874 It is not known whether he founded the creamery in Bonmahon. Probably his son James established it after Richard's death. The bakery was in operation before 1884, and the creamery was thriving by 1893. Watts & Co. later also had a thriving bacon export business. In addition, the family had interests in the copper mine on the cliff to the east of Knockmahon (there is a house called the Copper House next to the bar in Bonmahon which the family owned between 1891 and 1908).

Richard died at Bonmahon on 3 December 1875, aged 66. He was buried in a newly laid out family plot at Bonmahon church. His will was administered by his son James. James inherited the land and took over the business. Jane survived Richard, and died of bronchitis on 26 July 1882, aged 66. Her death certificate describes her as the widow of a draper. She was buried at Bonmahon Church on the 28th.

1 ANNA MARIA WATTS (1835?-1844), buried at Stradbally with Ballylaneen in 1844, aged 9 years.

2 JANE WATTS (1837-18??), baptized at Stradbally with Ballylaneen on 3 December 1837, daughter of Richard and Jane Watts of Bonmahon ... by Revd W.J. Ardagh. She presumably died in infancy.

3 JAMES WATTS (1839?-1897) was born in 1839 or 1840. He was always known in the family as Old Man Watts.

In 1862, he was the occupier of a small house in Bunmahon, with a rateable value of 10/- and in 1871 he acquired a small plot with a ruined house in Ballynarrid, near the sea.

On 9 February 1870, he married Sarah Catherine Dawes of 32 Upper Dorset Street, Dublin, in St Mary's Church, North Dublin

In 1875, James' father died. James was administrator of his father's estate, and took over the business. He continued to buy land in the area. By 1877, he had bought the freehold of the house in Bunmahon which contained the shop. He also held the freehold of the buildings which were used as the constabulary barracks. Slater's Directory for 1881 lists him as publican and grocer, and he was also a licensed pawnbroker. It seems that at some time in the 1880's, James also set up the creamery in Bunmahon.

Previously, like other farmers, he had taken his butter to Kilmacthomas market to sell it to 'the butter buyer', who in turn sold the butter on to the next man up the chain and then on to the London Market. Old Man Watts saw this as an opportunity and started to buy as much butter from the local farmers as he could and sold the larger amounts much further up the chain, saving the farmer's time and making his bit of profit. Being an entrepreneurial man, he next showed the farmers that they could do better still if they sold him the milk and then he would separate the milk and cream, give them back the skimmed milk for feeding their calves and pigs and he would make the butter.

That was but the beginning. Old Man Watts then built a creamery in Bonmahon to process more milk and make even more butter. A carpenter was employed, on site, to make wooden butter boxes for direct export of butter from Bonmahon to London. The dairy side grew fast. Creameries were then built in the surrounding areas There are remains of them in Kilmacthomas, Kilminion (near Stradbally), Mahon Bridge and at Carrols Cross (near Kilmacthomas). The satellite units sent the cream to Bonmahon for butter making.

While the Watts empire was growing the Bonmahon mines were also still staffed, so he also opened a Grocery, Drapery and Hardware Store to meet their and the farmers' needs. Old Man Watts saw another opportunity so started up a bakery, also in Bonmahon main street. And of course as shopping is a thirsty business, a bar was added so more of the monies paid for the milk stayed on site

Not content to leave it at that, Old Man Watts realised the local farmers had more productive time, thanks to his milk processing, to farm more pigs and that they too needed to be processed. So he built a Bacon Factory and, in addition to having very good local sales, started to export bacon and ham to England. On the profits, James was able to buy up very substantial acreages. Tenant farmers were giving up, famine and fever had hit, English Landlords are keen to off load their troublesome holdings in Ireland. Several farmers with land two to three miles outside Bonmahon still recall that the land up to their boundary was Watts' land. If there was a way to make money, it is said that James was on to it.

To supply water to the creamery and bacon factory a quite sophisticated Water pumping and storage system was installed about half a mile outside the village to pump the run-off water from a spring that flooded a mine on the cliff edge.

James continued farming as well; a court case reported in the Waterford News for 12 June 1885 concerned the theft of some grass from one of his fields at Ballynarrid.

The Waterford News of 31 October 1884 reports that A long letter of Mr James Watts (addressed to the L. G. Board, Dublin) was read (to the Board of Guardians) complaining that he was in fact 'boycotted' by the board, and kept out of the late bread contract, which was given to Mr O'Donoghue, Kilmacthomas. Another report, on 30 December 1893, records how he had given entertainment to his workers on St Stephen's Day. Dancing and revelry were kept up until the wee sma' hours... I learn that Mr Watt's creamery is one of the most prosperous in the country. It is said that he sends by parcel post over fifty pounds every day containing butter made at the creamery.

He joined the masonic lodge in Waterford (No. 32) in 1887. (There was also a Thomas Watts, who joined in 1865.)

Around 1888, James bought the Glebe fields to the west of Bunmahon from the Church Representative Body. There was an imposing house on the land, which was later occupied by his son William, and then by his daughter, Blanch, and her husband Tom Buckley.

James died suddenly, aged 57, on 13 February 1897. An inquest two days later confirmed the cause as heart disease. He was buried on the 16th at Bonmahon.

His widow Sarah Kate was in charge of the business in 1901. Sarah died aged 60 (the burial register says 64). She was buried at Bonmahon on 6 May, although the death was only registered in the third quarter of 1910

James and Sarah had eight children:

3.1 RICHARD JAMES WATTS (1870-1919), born at Bonmahon on 21 October 1870.

He joined the masonic lodge in Waterford in 1895, a year after his brother William.

He took over his father's property after James' death in 1897, and in 1901 he was living with his mother in Bonmahon village. (As well as five family members, the inn also housed three visitors (one was Mary Elizabeth Tyndall, 24, married, born in Virginia, USA, accompanied by her Waterford-born ten-year-old son, Charles John), two servants, the gardener, and four employees (the bookkeeper, a shop assistant, an apprentice, and the creamery manager (a Michael O'Laughlin from Limerick.)) In the next few years, Richard acquired numerous parcels of land in the village.

Richard was Bunmahon's grocer, draper and creamery owner in 1905. By 1910, Watts and Co ran creameries in Bonmahon and also in Lemybrien. The steam heating for the creamery was technically very advanced, and a French engineer named Bouvier was brought over to set it up and maintain it.

He was the 'cousin Richard who milked the cows' mentioned by Clara Corin, Annie's daughter, on a visit in 1908. (Clara and her daughter Enid visited again in 1914.)

He married his first cousin, Maud Mary Buckley, known as May or Maisie, at Hackney, Middlesex in the third quarter of 1903.

Maud Mary was born in Palatine Road, Hackney in the third quarter of 1880. Her father, Thomas, was a watchmaker from Lough Bray, Co. Wicklow. Her mother Rose Anna, née Dawes, was from Co. Waterford ("Rainy Shark", according to the 1901 census, when they were at 29 Northwold Road, Hackney. ("Rainy Shark" was Rhinashark (also spelt Rhineshark) at Tramore, where there was a harbour and a coastguard station.) In 1901, she was living with her parents, and her brothers, Thomas F Buckley (18) and Herbert D Buckley (16), and her mother's sister, Dorothy Dawes (50), who had been born in Bonmahon.) She was a school teacher, running her own school.

In 1911, May and Dick had been married for seven years, and had no children. Richard and Maisie had no children

Maisie was quite out of place in the society she found herself in, in remote Bonmahon. She had very quaint ideas. Drink was not allowed, so the pub had to go. Religious standards were to be observed. Animals too had rights - she did not approve of eating meat. Maisie felt it was wrong that a man of Dick's status and wealth should be hands on and so managers (so called!) should run the business (it is said that he was not even supposed to visit the farm land). That was the beginning of the end of the Watts Empire.

May's cousin, Eveline Dawes, came to work briefly as book-keeper at the creamery in 1905, when she was 18.

In 1914, Dick and May were living above the shop, with Dick's youngest sister, Violet. Dick died in 1919 at the age of 48, and was buried at Bonmahon church. May inherited his property. She also looked after her decesed brother Davie's son, David. She moved in with her sister-in-law, Blanch Buckley at The Glebe, but after the Watts business collapsed, she returned to England, where her brother Herbert (Bertie) and older sister Anna Bessie Buckley lived. She was forced to take some menial jobs to make ends meet. She maintained her connections with Bonmahon, and David married a girl from the Stradbally area in the 1930s. May is shown as a ratepayer in Bonmahon until 1957. She died in 1964, "aged 84", and was buried at Bonmahon church on 17 February.

3.2 WILLIAM JOHN WATTS (1872-1912), born on 10 December 1872 at Bonmahon and aged 27 in 1901. He was known as Willie.

He joined the masonic lodge in Waterford in 1894.

He married Lucy Lavinia White, daughter of Matthew White, the local coastguard, in 1900. Lucy was only 19 in 1901, and had been born, like most of her siblings, in County Dublin.

William and she lived for a while in "The Glebe", which had been built in the 1850s by the curate David Doudney on the former Glebe fields, on the hill to the west of Bonmahon. When the Rev. Doudney left Bonmahon the Glebe was not required for a replacement curate as the population had dropped so much. It was purchased from the Church Body by the Watts family. The Glebe had a walled garden and about 17 acres of land. It is possible that what the family called the lofts, a stable block with large lofts above, was where Doudney had his printing works and school. That building was set into the hill and had good vehicle access to the loft area from the rear of the building.

In 1901, the house was owned by Sarah Watts, William's mother, but was let out. In 1911 it was occupied by a tenant, Thomas Cullinan.

After the War, the Buckleys moved into the Glebe, and it remained in the family's possession until 1950.

Lucy died, and William remarried in Dublin at the end of 1903. His new wife, Sarah, had been born in County Dublin, and was some ten years younger than William. William and Lucy were grandparents of David Whiteside, one of the contributors to the present notes.

William at this time was an engine fitter "at works" - probably the creamery. He is famed for developing the portable creamery, "a large closed wagon, equipped with the latest dairying machinery and drawn by a traction engine. The shrill whistling of the engine, and the dense volumes of black smoke attending its progress, attracted a fascinated audience on its journeyings to and fro" between Bonmahon and Dunhill. The travelling creamery had been introduced in 1900: an article in the Waterford News reported:

We have been informed that Messrs Watts & Co., Bonmahon in this county are about to adventure upon a new departure in connection with their already successful creameries. This is nothing more or less than the establishment of a "travelling creamery" which will daily visit a large radius of country for collecting milk... (The) most modern separating plant will be utilised - it will be transacted from centre to centre.

William died at the age of 40 in 1912 He was buried at Bonmahon church on 5 December.

William and Lucy had issue:

3.2.1 LUCY ELEANOR WATTS (1903-??), born on 2 January 1903.

3.2.2 WILLIAM CECIL WATTS (1904-??), born on 7 April 1904.

3.2.3 SARAH ETHEL WATTS (1906-??), born on 17 June 1906, known as Ettie.

3.3 LAURA MATILDA WATTS (1876-1943), born on 18 February 1876. She married Thomas Patrick Kennedy, an Annestown farmer, on 18 October 1905 They settled in Lemybrien. Laura died in the third quarter of 1943. Patrick and Laura had three children:

3.3.1 TOM KENNEDY. He remained unmarried, and worked as a roadman for Waterford County Council.

3.3.2 JACK KENNEDY. He moved to England, doing various jobs. He later ran a ladies' hair salon, "BerJak", in Seven Sisters Road, North London, with his partner, Bernard.

3.3.3 LALLIE KENNEDY. She married Victor Collins. Their son, Henry Collins, was headmaster of Newtown School, Waterford for twenty-one years, from 1988 to 2009. (Newtown is a Quaker boys' school - Blanch (Bixie) Watts was educated at Mountmellick, the corresponding girls' school, now closed.)

3.4 MYRA ELIZABETH WATTS (1877-1878), born on 5 February 1877, who died of pneumonia, aged one, on 20 February 1878.

3.5 EMILY BLANCHE WATTS (1878-1960?), born on 31 July 1878 at Bonmahon and aged 22 in 1901. She was always known as Blanche.

On 7 August 1902, a stormy day with heavy seas, Blanch and a number of friends decided to go swimming. The beach at Bonmahon is treacherous in any bad weather as a rip tide cuts deep channels in the sand and in stormy weather must be avoided. Despite being advised otherwise the party went swimming. Many got into difficulty and both coastguard and local men then tried to save them.

A local man, Cornelius (Con) Sarsfield, saved Blanche. A coastguard, one Frederick Shaw, saved some others and then he was drowned, but the girl he was trying to save got back to shore with help from other helpers. Another girl died. Shaw was buried in a grave in Bonmahon churchyard just beside the final resting place of Blanch herself.

Blanch married her first cousin and sister-in-law's brother, Thomas Francis Buckley, on 29 April 1907. (There is a photograph in the Poole collection at the National Library of Ireland.)

Tom had been born at Hackney in the last quarter of 1882. In 1901 he was working as a jeweller's assistant in the family business, Buckley & Lovell in Ludgate Hill, London. At the time of his marriage, he had a printer's and stationer's shop at 112 Wealdstone High Street. He was also sub-postmaster.

The couple settled in Wealdstone, and were there in 1911, but when Blanch's brother, Dick, died in 1919, they returned to Bonmahon to help Maisie with the business.

A report in the Waterford News of 10 February 1928 revolved around a motoring accident which Tom had the previous 18 October. (A Mr Michael Foley was in the car with him.) The report described him as an egg dealer, a merchant and a butter buyer. He said he had been living in Bonmahon for about ten years.

Blanch and Tom lived in The Glebe. Tom is said to have kitted himself out in brogues and plus-fours to seem to be the gentleman from London coming to the rescue of Watts & Co, but he had little business ability. It is said that they were guardians of David's two children, Bruddie and Bixie, who actually owned the house. Blanch kept the books, and she and Maisie brought in a manager to help run the creamery. It was round about this time that the business ran down. Employees behaved dishonestly, for example:

Farm workers: Instead of spreading slag fertiliser on fields, farmers sold it and put a shake of cement powder around the field entrance to make it look as though the slag was spread on the field. When Watts inspected, if he ever did, the dust showed on his boots and he went no further.
Goods in transit: Goods moved between creameries often arrived short, the balance sold or stolen on route.
Bacon: Hams and sides of bacon were commonly traded in the local pub for beer or cash. They left over the factory wall.
Bread: Loaves were thrown over the wall at night just like the bacon.
Overtime: Rarely worked but often claimed.
Milk Churns: Churns would have sides of bacon slipped inside when emptied and skimmed milk poured over to hide the fact.
Petrol: A driver would keep complaining how little his lorry returned to the tank and be selling off a few gallons a day. Stories are told of drivers saying that petrol was faulty and pouring the contents of tanks into the street to prove it, having topped up empty tanks with water to cover the earlier theft.

It is said that a strike in 1926 led to the final closure of the business. The buildings were left to become derelict and the business was "published in Stubbs Gazette" and declared bankrupt. The Bonmahon Main Street site: creamery, shop/pub, bakery, factory etc and about 20 acres was bought at the bankruptcy auction in 1928 by Nicholas Fitzgerald, and remained in his possession until 1944. The Waterford News of 2 November 1928 reported:

It is understood that Mr, Nicholas Fitzgerald, Spring Valley, Bonmahon, has purchased the interest in the business once carried on by Messrs Watts & Co. For over half a century, and up to a few years ago, Messrs Watts conducted an extensive general business, and in addition a bacon factory where upwards of 200 pigs were slaughtered for export weekly. Both establishments gave much needed employment to Bonmahon, and the village was looked upon as prosperous. In the days when the copper mines were working there, Bonmahon boasted a population of 3000, which has fallen now to below 200. The revival of an industry there will be good news for the residents. (One of the buildings was converted into a dance hall by Fitzgerald and many were pulled down, one to produce the pitch pine floor for the dance.) (From 1933, the "house, shop, dance hall, offices, yard and garden" are recorded as being occupied by his daughter Elizabeth ('Lill'), who later became Mrs E.M. Kennedy.)

Blanch and Tom had a son:

3.5.1 THOMAS ROY GRATTAN BUCKLEY (1908-1963), born at Wealdstone, Middlesex on 26 March 1908. He moved to Bonmahon with his parents when he was about ten. Later, he married Kathleen Rebecca (Kitty) Gray, a local farmer's daughter, on 24 April 1940. Around 1947, Roy and Kitty bought the pub and the village shop from Kate Curran, and here they operated a seed business. They occupied the Glebe, which Roy owned jointly with David Watts, until 1949, when it was sold to Major Hugh Hallinan. They moved to the Copper House, next door to the pub, and later divided the house into two semis. The pub was sold by Roy and Kitty Buckley to Tom Hayes in the 1960s for £260.

Like his father, he was a member of the masonic lodge (32) in Waterford.

Roy suffered a heart attack while driving with his wife to visit her nephew, Harry Gray, at Ballygarron on 23 November 1963 and died. His widow continued to run the shop on her own. Roy and Kitty's headstone in Stradbally Churchyard records that Kitty died on 15 August 1965, aged 56.

Roy and Kitty had a son:

3.5.1.1 THOMAS BUCKLEY, born at the Glebe. He lives in England and is one of the contributors to these notes.

3.6 DAVID VALENTINE WATTS (1882-1918), born in the first quarter of 1882, and known as Davie. He was a dental anaesthetist and, according to an advertisement in the Waterford Times of 31 March 1911, a dental surgeon in Kilmacthomas. He had a good reputation. One old man used to say "the only fillings that had never fallen out were those that were put in by young Davie Watts". His main practice is said to have been at Clonmel. He also practised at Carrick-on-Suir. He was single and living with his brother Dick in 1911. He married Elizabeth Sarah Brown, the daughter of Joseph Brown, a farmer of Kilmacthomas at Rossmire parish church on 28 August 1912. He was one of the owners of the Glebe.

Although David and his wife died at Carrick-on-Suir in 1918 during an influenza epidemic, his death was not registered until 1925. The couple are buried just under the east window of Rossmire (Kilmacthomas) parish church.

David and Betty had two children, Bixie (also called Blanch) and Buddie (called David). They inherited the Glebe when very young, and were looked after by their aunts and uncle, David by Maisie Watts and Blanch by Blanch and Tom Buckley, who were their guardians.

3.6.1 SARAH BLANCHE WATTS (1914-), born in the second quarter of 1914. Blanch went to boarding school in Mount Mellick outside Waterford. She trained as a teacher and got a position in the west of Ireland. In the first quarter of 1940 she married a clergyman, Stanley Judge. The family moved to Australia in the mid 1950s. Stanley got a parish north of Perth. They later moved to Adelaide, where Stanley was Chaplain to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital until he retired. Stanley died in the 1990s and Blanch died some ten years later, just after her 90th birthday. Their son David died shortly after his mother. They had two children:

3.6.1.1 DAVID JUDGE (1943-200?), born in 1943. He had children. He died shortly after his mother.

3.6.1.2 ELIZABETH ANN JUDGE (b.1944/5), born a year or so later and known as Lizanne. She also has children and lives in the Adelaide area.

3.6.2 JAMES DAVID WATTS (1916-197?), born in the second quarter of 1916 in the Carrick-on-Suir registration district. He became part owner of The Glebe.

He was brought up by Maisie Watts, moving at one stage to London. He married a girl from Stradbally area in the mid 1930s, Pam Payne(?).

He joined the British Royal Artillery in the war and served in the UK and Burma. He was well decorated and Mentioned in Dispatches but never spoke of it later. On return from the war he found his wife had left with someone else.

He and Pam divorced, and David remarried, to Betty Sexton from Waterford. The Sexton family ran a jewellery and a very up-market grocery business. Betty found David's medals and the citation in an old suitcase of his and then the story came out, from her not David. Betty hung the citation on their sitting room wall. The medals were never on show.

David was a quiet unassuming man. He did a variety of jobs in the post war years and in the early 1950s got a sales post with Jacobs Biscuits looking after a large chunk of south east Ireland. He retired from this post. He died in Tramore in the 1970s. Betty died more than ten years later.

David and Betty adopted a son, Brian (working in London in 2009), and then had a son Peter, who teaches in Dublin. Peter has a son, Adam.

3.7 JAMES ALFRED SOUDAN WATTS (1884-1885), born at Bonmahon in the second quarter of 1884, and who died of measles on 29 July 1885, aged 13 months. He was buried the next day at Bonmahon.

2.8 VIOLET SARAH WATTS (1890-1933?), known as Vi. She was born in the third quarter of 1890. She was living at home in Bonmahon in 1905, and with her brother Dick in 1911. She married a cousin, Eddie Andrews, in the first quarter of 1921. She probably died in Cork in the last quarter of 1933.

4 RICHARD WATTS (1843-1848), baptized on 20 December 1843, infant son of Richard Watts of the Water Guard and Jane his wife, of Stradbally, by G.T. Roche. He died aged 5, and was buried on 30 November 1848.

5 JANE WATTS (1845-1879?), named after her deceased sister, was baptized on 22 October 1845. She married James Thomas Cox on 30 March 1869 at Monksland parish church

. James was a clerk, of Kings Terrace, Waterford, the son of Emmanuel Cox, a farmer. Jane may have died in the Middleton registration district in the second quarter of 1879.

6 MATILDA WATTS (1848-1909), known as Tillie, was baptized on 15 August 1848, along with Sarah Catherine Dawes and Eliza Cunningham. (According to her death certificate, though, her birthday was on 18 August.)

In 1892, she was living in Dublin at 20 Church Street, Up Sheriff Street. On 17 November 1892, she married her brother James' brother-in-law, Robert Clement Dawes, a 39-year-old widower. The witnesses were John D Corry and Emilie Edwards. The couple lived at 1 Clifton Villa, Inchicore, Dublin.

Tillie emigrated alone to the United States from Dublin, leaving Queenstown on the Cunard Line's SS Ivernia on 11 June 1902 and arriving at Boston on 19 June. She gave her age as 46 and her profession as "servant". She was one of the few passengers to have her own cabin. She went to stay with her sister Anna Downs.

Matilda Dawes died after an operation for acute appendicitis on 15 August 1909 and was buried two days later at Orleans, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

7 ANNIE SIDWELL WATTS (1850?-1930) was born in 1850 or 1851. On 10 February 1874, she married Thomas Andrews, deputy governor of Waterford Jail, at Monksland parish church. The witnesses were Samuel Henry Perry and a name transcribed as Gio Gordania. (Samuel was born at Strancally on the Waterford/Cork border in 1851. He married in 1875 and moved to Bidston, founding S.H. Perry & Co. Ltd. In the 1881 census he was a 29-year-old dealer and provision agent at Walton on Hill, Lancashire.) The notice in the Waterford Chronicle for Wednesday 11 February reads: On the 10th inst at Bonmahon (sic) Church, County Waterford, by the Rev. Mr. Cooper, Mr. Thomas Andrews of Waterford to Annie Sidwell, third daughter of Mr. J. Watts, of Bonmahon. (Alfred William Francis Cooper was curate of Stradbally from 1873 to 1877. He was in his twenties.) She subsequently accompanied Thomas in his career to Dublin, Downpatrick, Clonmel and Cork. They had eleven children, or whom nine surivived infancy. Annie died in Cork on 17 March 1930.

8 ELIZABETH WATTS (1857?-1888?) was twenty years old when she married John William Downs on 6 November 1877 at Monksland Church "in the parish of Stradbally".

John was a telegraph clerk, of 3 Frederick St., Limerick, and the son of Thomas Downs, a Chelsea pensioner who had become a shopkeeper. He had been born in the first quarter of 1853 at Greenwich. He and his sister, Julia Harriet Downs, two years younger than him, had joined the Post Office as third class clerks in 1872. Elizabeth probably died in Dublin in the last quarter of 1888. John remarried, to Janie Willis, in the last quarter of 1890, and subsequently had five children. He died in Dublin in the last quarter of 1914.

9 ANNA MARIA WATTS (1858-1928) was born in Bonmahon on 26 October 1858. She emigrated to the United States. She arrived in Boston on the SS Cephalonia on 7 September 1885, and married her sister's brother-in-law, Thomas Downs, a morse operator on the French Transatlantic Cable, at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Boston, the same day. Thomas was "of Eastham, Massachusetts", while Anna was "of Piltown, Ireland".

The family first lived in Eastham, on Cape Cod, and then in Orleans when the cable was extended to that town.

Thomas died on 14 February 1921, and Anna Maria died on 15 April 1928. They are buried at Orleans, Massachusetts next to Anna Maria's sister, Tillie.

10 SARAH WATTS (1861?-??), who was aged 20 on 20 July 1881, when she married David Younger, a merchant of 604 Eglington St, Anderston, Glasgow at Monksland church "in the parish of Stradbally"

. She was later widowed, and remarried, becoming Sarah Kelly. In 1914, her address was given as Dunmurry, in County Antrim. She and David had three children:

And a NORA WATTS died in the third quarter of 1899, aged 70, at Carrick-on-Suir.

Richard Watts of Bonmahon (1810-1875)